Australia bans TikTok on government devices; GB imposes fine for using children’s data

Australia announced on Tuesday that it will ban the app. TikTokowned by the Chinese group bytedancein government devices for security reasons, adding to the list of Western countries that adopted the same measure.

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus said the decision follows the advice of the country’s intelligence agencies and will be implemented “as soon as practicable.”

Previously, the United States, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, France, the Netherlands and the European Commission had made similar decisions.

Dreyfus explained that the government would approve some exceptions “on a case-by-case” basis, but establishing measures to mitigate security risks.

experts from cybersecurity They warn that the app, with more than 1 billion users, can be used to collect data that is then shared with Chinese authorities.

Beijing condemned the move, and said it had officially protested to the Australian authorities.

“We call on the Australian side to sincerely abide by market economy rules and fair competition principles, and provide Chinese companies with a fair, transparent and non-discriminatory business environment,” Mao Ning, a spokesman for the Australian government, told reporters. the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Surveys estimate that even seven million Australians use the appwhich is a quarter of the population.

The Australian Attorney General’s department said that TikTok poses “significant security and privacy risks” due to “the extensive collection of user data.”

TikTok criticizes that these bans are “based on xenophobia”, but acknowledged in December last year that it had collected user data to spy on journalists.

Its spokesman in Australia, Lee Hunter, assured that the company has “never” given data to the Chinese government.

No one works harder than us to ensure that this is never a possibility,” he told Channel Seven television.

Earlier this year, the Australian government also announced that it was dispensing with hundreds of Chinese-produced security cameras from politicians’ offices due to security concerns.

The fears are fueled by a 2017 Chinese law that requires local companies to hand over to authorities, upon request, personal data related to national security issues.

UK fines TikTok $15.9 million for using children’s data

Chinese social network TikTok was fined 12.7 million pounds ($15.9 million) on Tuesday by Britain’s digital watchdog, the ICO, for “illegal” use of children’s personal data, according to a statement.

The ICO estimates that TikTok allowed up to 1.4 million children under 13 in the UK to open an account on its platform in 2020, contrary to its official rules, and also flags the use of their data without parental consent.

The ICO investigation revealed that TikTok had not carried out “adequate verifications to identify and cancel child accounts” who were not of the necessary age to use its platform, despite the fact that some managers had raised internal concerns about it, the statement details.

In the UK there are laws to ensure our children are safe in the digital world and TikTok did not respect them, John Edwards, the UK information commissioner, was quoted as saying in the statement.

The White House, the European Commission, the Canadian, British and Australian governments recently banned their officials from using TikTok on their work phones.

The Norwegian Parliament did the same last week, as did the Swedish army.

Washington accuses TikTok of serving as a tool in Beijing to spy on and manipulate Americans.